Lost My Head...But I'm Back on the Right Track

The pounding thrash-metal of Beowulf is as brutal and unrelenting as the music churned out by their Venice, CA, buddies, Suicidal Tendencies, though Beowulf relies less on sheer aggression and more on melody than Suicidal. Unfortunately, while Beowulf may be a bit more polished and tuneful (which shows in their tendency for dexterous, fleet-fingered guitar solos), they are also sorely lacking in any sort of energy or originality. Lacking Suicidal's power (or a charismatic frontman like Mike Muir), Beowulf has very little here to distinguish them from most other thrash acts. Lyrically, their content is standard fare -- railing against the squares in "Plastic People," extolling the virtues of fighting in "Flare," and so forth. Beowulf also falls prey to that most tiresome of thrash clichés, the jokey cover -- in this case, a shrieking rendition of Smokey Robinson's "Cruising." With no shortage of other acts doing this sort of thing, and several of them far better, Beowulf simply isn't especially memorable, and Lost My Head is a fairly forgettable album.